Faculty (partial list)
Alonzo King
Marina Hotchkiss
Arturo Fernandez
Yannis Adoniou
Maurya Kerr
Katherine Warner
Debra Rose
Mary Carbonara
Gregory Dawson
Jim Santi Owen
Mr. King has created works that have entered the repertories of companies throughout the world, including the Royal Swedish Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Washington Ballet. He has worked extensively in opera, television, and film and has choreographed works for prima ballerina Natalia Makarova and film star Patrick Swayze. Renowned for his skill as a teacher, Mr. King has been the guest ballet master for National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Ballet West and others. He has collaborated with artists such as actor Danny Glover, legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and tabla master Zakir Hussain.
In 1982, Mr. King founded Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, which has developed into an international touring company. Seven years later, he inaugurated the San Francisco Dance Center, which has grown into one of the largest dance facilities on the West Coast. In 2001, Alonzo King started the LINES Ballet School and Pre-Professional Program to nurture and develop the talents of young dancers. Expanding the scope of his educational visions to the college level this year, Alonzo King and LINES Ballet are embarking on a partnership with the Dominican University of California. This joint effort will launch the West Coast's first BFA program in Dance. It is the only joint BFA program in the country to be led by a living master choreographer.
Alonzo King is a recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, Irvine Fellowship in Dance, National Dance Project and the National Dance Residency Program. He has received five Isadora Duncan Awards, the Hero Award from Union Bank, the Lehman Award, and the Excellence Award from KGO in San Francisco. He has served on panels for the National Endowment of the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Columbus Arts Council and Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Arts Partners Program. In 2005 he was named a Master of African-American Choreography by the Kennedy Center. He is a former commissioner for the city and county of San Francisco, and a writer and lecturer on the art of dance; his contributions appear in the books Masters of Movement: Portraits of American Choreographers and in Dance Masters: Interviews with Legends of Dance. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Dominican University of California, and in 2006 he was given the Green Honors Chair Professorship from Texas Christian University.
Marina Hotchkiss, BFA Program Director
Marina joined LINES Ballet in
1983, after having danced with the Deutsche Oper Berlin for four
years. In Berlin, Marina worked directly with such dance luminaries
as Rudolf Nureyev, Birgit Cullberg, Loyce Houlton, Anna Markard and
Valery Panov. In addition to the works of these artists, she appeared
in ballets by George Balanchine and Kenneth McMillan, amongst others. In
her eighteen years with LINES Ballet, Marina participated in the making
of over forty original ballets by Alonzo King, creating memorable roles
in Lila, Alkan Pas de Deux, Without Wax, Gurdjieff Piano Music, String
Quartet, The Hearts Natural Inclination, Tarab and Who Dressed You
Like a Foreigner? Since 2002, she has been an integral
faculty member of LINES Ballet School and LINES Ballet School Pre-Professional
Program, shaping curriculum and developing her workshop Metaphor ,
which explores the embodiment of meaning. She was on the faculty of School
of the Arts for four years. In addition to her work with LINES,
Marina was a tenured member of the San Francisco Opera ballet for
eighteen years. In 2001 Marina received an Isadora Duncan Award for
Outstanding Achievement.
Arturo Fernandez, Guest Teacher, choreographer
Arturo is a choreographer, Master Teacher and, since 1992, Ballet master for Alonzo King's LINES Ballet. He has choreographed for LINES Ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater, Inland Pacific Ballet and Ballet Idaho's Junior Company, among others. Arturo has taught at NYU, California State University Long Beach, San Francisco State University and has been a guest teacher in schools across the country. Arturo is a yearly guest teacher for Hubbard Street Dance Company and Inland Pacific Ballet. He is an integral part of the faculty for the San Francisco Dance Center, where he has taught for over twenty years, and the Alonzo King Workshop and LINES Ballet Pre-professional Program.
Yannis Adoniou, Improvisation, Choreography
Yannis is a choreographer, teacher and Artistic Director
of KUNST-STOFF. He was a member of LINES Ballet from 1993 to 1998. In
1998 he founded KUNST-STOFF with partner Tomi Paasonen, creating a unique
style of movement that blends ballet technique with Release principles
while extending the body's structure beyond codified limits. Yannis has
choreographed for Bonn Ballett, Herbst Dance in Heidelberg, Germany,
Tanz Tage Fest in Berlin, Germany, the Bay Area Dance Series and the
San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Dance Festival among others. He has been a
guest teacher nationally and internationally and is a member of the faculty
at San Francisco Dance Center, LINES Ballet School and LINES Ballet School
Pre-professional Program, for which he has also choreographed.
Katherine
Warner, Performance, Senior Project
Katherine is a choreographer and teacher. She was a founding member
of LINES Ballet and created many memorable roles in ballets by Alonzo
King such as Garland, Awake in the Dream, Compelling Geological Evidence
and Gurdjieff Piano Music. Katherine was also a tenured dancer with
the San Francisco Opera ballet. She has danced with San Francisco
Ballet, S.F. Dance Spectrum and Zaccho Dance Theater among others.
She is a core faculty member at San Francisco Dance Center, as well
as LINES Ballet School and LINES Ballet School Pre-Professional Program.
Katherine was honored as a finalist by the Isadora Duncan Awards
for Outstanding Contribution as a Dancer.
Debra Rose, Gyrokinesis, Gyrotonic
Debra joined LINES Ballet in 1984. She has assisted
Alonzo King in setting work on Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Dance
Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey. Debra is a Master Trainer in the
GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM ®,
having worked with the system for over twenty years. Debra works
closely with Juliu Horvath, creator of the system, in developing and
implementing the gyrotonic syllabus used all over the world. She brings
special expertise to the use of the system in dance training and has
created the gyrotonic curriculum for LINES Ballet School and LINES
Ballet Pre-Professional Program.
Mary is a teacher, choreographer and Artistic Director of Mary Carbonara Dances. She has been a member of Margaret Jenkins Dance Company since 2000 and is formerly a member of Robert Moses'Kin, Project Bandaloop, Liss Fain Dance and Wendy Osserman and Company. Her choreography has been presented by Summerfest/Dance. Dance Mosaic. San Jose Dance Works, and Dancer's Group Local Choreographers Series, among others. Mary has taught nationally, internationally and throughout Northern California, including San Jose State University, UC Davis, St. Mary's College, Mills College and ODC/San Francisco among others. She is currently on the faculty at San Francisco Dance Center and San Francisco Ballet School. Mary earned an M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from Mills College and a B.A. in English from Barnard College.
Gregory Dawson, Ballet,
Men’s Technique,
Partnering, Choreography
Gregory Dawson began his studies in Chicago at Ruth Page School of Ballet, then left for Southern Illinois to study ballet and Haitian dance with Katherine Dunham. He moved to San Francisco where he studied with Evelyn Schuert at Shawl-Anderson dance Studios and with Alonzo King at Dance Central. Mr. Dawson left for New York in 1982 to study and perform with Dance Theatre of Harlem. From 1983-1986 he danced with Theatre Ballet Canadien, returning to the Bay Area to perform with Oakland Ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater, Sacramento Ballet and the San Francisco Opera Ballet. Mr. Dawson joined LINES in 1987. He feels well prepared to pass on his knowledge to the next generation of young dancers.
Owen is an America percussionist, teacher, and performer based alternately in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Drumming since the age of eight, he has been studying tabla since 1991 from Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music, at the California Institute of the Arts, and in India. Over the last ten years he has been studying South Indian percussion instruments including mrindangam, ghatam, kanjira and morsing from T.H. Subash Chandran and tavil from K.Sekar. At CalArts, Owen studied Jazz with Charlie Haden, James Newton and Tootie Heath , and African drumming and dance from the Ladzekpo Brothers. He also studies the art of accompaniment for the traditional Indian dance known as kathak under one of its masters, Pandit Chitresh Das. Owen holds a Bachelor of Humanities degree from New College of California and has just recently completed a Masters degree in World Music from California Institute of the Arts.
In 1999 Owen received a fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies to research percussion ensembles in India. Owen has been the recipient of two grants from the Zellerbach Family Fund, an Isadora Duncan Award, and a Black Box Award from SF Weekly.
Owen has performed with his gurus, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Subash Chandran, and K.Sekar, both in India and America. He has also performed with internationally renowned artists including: Jazz legend Pharoah Sanders, Nubian musician Hamza el Din, guitar innovator Stanley Jordan, drumset virtuoso Steve Smith, minimalist composer Terry Riley, Jazz saxophonist Joseph Jarman, Israeli oud player Yair Dalal, tabla virtuoso Bikram Ghosh, kanjira exponent Ganesh Kumar, devotional singer Jai Uttal, avant-garde pianist Myra Melford, Italian percussionist Alessandra Belloni, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, and bansuri flute exponent Steve Gorn. Owen has appeared on numerous recordings in America and has recorded in India with ghatam maestro T.H. Vikku Vinayakram and kanjiar wizard Selva Ganesh.